Oh, Right, Happy Columbus Day

Run.Though you may not know it from the full office buildings and crowded roadways and subways this morning, today is a federal holiday, namely, Columbus Day. Of America’s 10 federal holidays, Columbus Day is certainly the most controversial and least observed. While many government agencies, post offices, and schools were closed today, the N.Y.S.E., as well as many privately owned companies, remained open.

The traditional Columbus Day gift is that of the postcolonial think-piece. Ward Churchill, Native American–studies scholar, provides the historical basis for dissent—“Columbus's programs [in the Caribbean] reduced [the native Taino population] from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496,” he wrote in 1994— while the The Washington Post characterizes the strain of modern anti-Columbus protest: “Cities have canceled parades and some campuses have dropped Columbus’s name to reflect the concerns of indigenous populations.” In a poll, 62 percent of the paper’s readers responded that they do not think Columbus Day should be federal holiday. The Nation, AllVoices.com, and Rachel Maddow all weighed in on the issue, too. We can certainly all agree, though, that America would have been more equipped for spirited intellectual debate had we had a three-day weekend to prepare accordingly.